Crum Creek Meander

As I gathered and organized photos for this post I’ve realized just how much time has passed since I started working with artist, Stacy Levy on her sculpture Crum Creek Meander. And it sure has been fun! The project is not quite complete, but I decided to use some time to catch you up on the process of what has been happily consuming my life for the last month.

This is how we left the Crum Creek Meander last night.

Pretty spectacular. AND when it is finally complete there will be the added light play from blue LEDs that are strung through the entire length of the top rail.

Continue on with me and I will explain…

Before I even got involved with this project, Stacy and her assistant Fred had worked on designing and prototyping for over a year, so they knew what they wanted and how to proceed, so very happy I got to hop on and enjoy the ride!

Day 1 was an interesting day which involved corking holes in the pipes that would ultimately house the LED lights. Here is Kim, another local recruit working away.

We corked a lot of holes, lots and lots. And lots.

The purpose of the corking was so that we could fill the pipes with white paint and coat the inside so that the illumination of the LEDs would be more intense.

Luckily we had a work space that allowed us to get vertical during this process. A really beautiful space with a really beautiful view.

Next was the fun part! Watching paint dry….the paint took a surprisingly long time to dry.

Fortunately (?!) we had 2 snow storms and an ice storm to dig out from which gave the paint ample time to dry before we moved onto assembly.

I’d say this was the fun part, but every. single. part. has been really fun and inspiring.

Fred and I were on ladder duty clamping down the horizontal pipes that house the LED rope lights. As we worked our way along the piece, with lots of assistance from lots of awesome helpers, we threaded through the lights which when turned on will shine down through the uncorked holes and lightly illuminate the vinyl strips that hang below.

Another one of the best parts is working with friends. Beth and I have been having so much fun!

After days of work, the skeleton was complete and we could move onto hanging the vinyl sheeting. And with the craziest winter weather ever recorded since the beginning of time, it was really wonderful to have this happen while unloading the vinyl. (Hi, sis! Hi, Stacy!)

Here Kim hangs vinyl. It’s seriously hard to not smile while working with this crew.

While Kim and a few other volunteers worked on hanging vinyl, I was hard at work at my drill station with the nuts, bolts, washers and my trusty drill. Happy, happy me.

The project is not quite complete but will be by Wednesday, March 5th at 4:30 when Stacy will give a lecture on her work in the Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema on Swarthmore College campus followed by an opening reception in the List Gallery.

More photos to come of the opening and the completed piece, but for now I will leave you with some photos from the past few days of Crum Creek Meander in all it’s foggy, windy, dusky, joyful glory.